Oct. 5th, 2007 [entries|reading|network|archive]
simont

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Fri 2007-10-05 10:30
Pessimality

There are many tasks which it's possible to learn how to do much more quickly and efficiently after you've done them a few times.

So doing such a thing once isn't too bad: it may be frustrating and fiddly because you don't really know how to do it properly, but you only have to do it once so it's at least over quickly. And doing it lots of times isn't too bad either: after a few floundering attempts, you get into the proper swing of it, and it becomes easy and satisfying from then on.

But somewhere in between, there is an absolutely pessimal number of times to have to do the task: just at the point where you have the insight which tells you how to do it really efficiently and how you could have saved 85% of the time you'd spent up until now, you've suddenly finished and have no opportunity to use that knowledge.

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